Learning the Irish language (Gaeilge) Fluent face beauty analysis in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips
[Note: If you'd like something interesting to read in Irish (translated by natives from the Gaeltacht) check out the full version and now upraded Language Hacking Guide in the Fluent In 3 Months PREMIUM package ] Gaeilge
When we say Irish (the language) we don’t mean our accent in English (i.e. Hiberno English – I’ve written a separate post about that here !) – we mean a language on a completely different branch of the European language family tree.
More distant than French and Spanish, stranger than Slavic languages and more exotic and beautiful than many languages, Irish is an interesting specimen and something I’d like to share with readers today as part of a few posts for Seachtain na Gaeilge – the week celebrating the Irish language and culture leading up to St. Patrick’s day! Níl sé deacair ar chor ar bith
It only has 11 irregular verbs (compared to 500 or so in English and thousands in Spanish/French/etc. face beauty analysis depending on how you count them), there’s no indefinite article (so you can just say “Tá leabhar agam” – literally I have book etc. with no “a” to complicate things), and even though it has masculine and feminine nouns, the definite article “an” ( the ) is the same for both. It uses the same alphabet as other European languages (although it is the only language that still traditionally uses its own special face beauty analysis font ).
The face beauty analysis phonetics (pronunciation based on spelling) are quite different, and this usually scares a lot of people. But you can learn the differences very quickly and after that they are consistent (unlike in English), so you can read any given text aloud pretty well after a small amount of study.
Most of the letters work pretty similarly to how they do in most European languages, but some changes include mb = m, gc = c, th = h, dt = d, bhf = silent, face beauty analysis and some consonants change sound depending on if they are before i/e or a/o/u. This happens in Spanish/French/Italian face beauty analysis and other languages too (with c/g for example) but is slightly different in Irish.
For example S before i or e is an sh sound – this is why the well-known name Seán is pronounced (and spelled, in America) as Shawn. face beauty analysis Most of the vowels work similarly to as they would in English, with the exception of “ao” pronounced as “ee”, so the name Aoife is pronounced Ee-fa . The subtle difference between how some consonants are pronounced takes some practice but can indeed be learned :).
This is important for saying Irish people’s names correctly (even when just speaking English). Even some titles are not translated in Ireland, instead of a “prime minister” we have a Taoiseach (the word we use in English too) – based on what I said above (and ‘ch’ is pronounced gutturally as in loch ), you will see better why this is pronounced Tee-sho [ ch ].
The language also interestingly has no word for yes or no (like in Thai for example). We simply repeat the verb of the question, e.g. Ar ith tú do lón? D’ith! Did you eat your lunch? I did! (literally, I ate ) Cad atá tú ag caint faoi?
You know the way in most languages you change the end of words in certain situations? (car/cars, I eat / he eats, drapeau / drapeaux etc.)… And even the middle of the words in other ones (man/men, mouse/mice)? Well in Irish we very merrily change the beginning . This is something common in other Celtic languages and adds to a nice flow between words.
So, for those of you who don’t know, my name is actually Brendan (Benny is my nickname). In Irish this is originally written Breandán and when followed by verbs and such it stays the same. Tá Breandán ag ithe - Brendan is eating.
However, thanks to the magic of initial mutations we can change the start of words in many situations! So if you want to get my attention some day, don’t shout Breandán!! but A Bhreandán!! – which is actually pronounced ah Vrendawn since bh=v! This would be the vocative case for the linguists out there. Another example: Mo = my & madra = dog, but my dog is mo mhadra (“mo w adra”) since mh=w.
This strange use of spelling and the other examples mentioned above may seem offputting, but it’s actually quite helpful believe it or not! You see, we keep the letter of the original base word (e.g. crann for tree) in a modified version of the word (e.g. i gcrann for in a tree – the ‘c’ is silent, but essential for recognising the original word when the modified one is written). This is way better than if the language was perfectly phonetic; even if you knew the word crann, if you saw “grann” in a dictionary, text, or spelled out for you, it would be much more confusing. I’m told that Welsh (in the same language family)
[Note: If you'd like something interesting to read in Irish (translated by natives from the Gaeltacht) check out the full version and now upraded Language Hacking Guide in the Fluent In 3 Months PREMIUM package ] Gaeilge
When we say Irish (the language) we don’t mean our accent in English (i.e. Hiberno English – I’ve written a separate post about that here !) – we mean a language on a completely different branch of the European language family tree.
More distant than French and Spanish, stranger than Slavic languages and more exotic and beautiful than many languages, Irish is an interesting specimen and something I’d like to share with readers today as part of a few posts for Seachtain na Gaeilge – the week celebrating the Irish language and culture leading up to St. Patrick’s day! Níl sé deacair ar chor ar bith
It only has 11 irregular verbs (compared to 500 or so in English and thousands in Spanish/French/etc. face beauty analysis depending on how you count them), there’s no indefinite article (so you can just say “Tá leabhar agam” – literally I have book etc. with no “a” to complicate things), and even though it has masculine and feminine nouns, the definite article “an” ( the ) is the same for both. It uses the same alphabet as other European languages (although it is the only language that still traditionally uses its own special face beauty analysis font ).
The face beauty analysis phonetics (pronunciation based on spelling) are quite different, and this usually scares a lot of people. But you can learn the differences very quickly and after that they are consistent (unlike in English), so you can read any given text aloud pretty well after a small amount of study.
Most of the letters work pretty similarly to how they do in most European languages, but some changes include mb = m, gc = c, th = h, dt = d, bhf = silent, face beauty analysis and some consonants change sound depending on if they are before i/e or a/o/u. This happens in Spanish/French/Italian face beauty analysis and other languages too (with c/g for example) but is slightly different in Irish.
For example S before i or e is an sh sound – this is why the well-known name Seán is pronounced (and spelled, in America) as Shawn. face beauty analysis Most of the vowels work similarly to as they would in English, with the exception of “ao” pronounced as “ee”, so the name Aoife is pronounced Ee-fa . The subtle difference between how some consonants are pronounced takes some practice but can indeed be learned :).
This is important for saying Irish people’s names correctly (even when just speaking English). Even some titles are not translated in Ireland, instead of a “prime minister” we have a Taoiseach (the word we use in English too) – based on what I said above (and ‘ch’ is pronounced gutturally as in loch ), you will see better why this is pronounced Tee-sho [ ch ].
The language also interestingly has no word for yes or no (like in Thai for example). We simply repeat the verb of the question, e.g. Ar ith tú do lón? D’ith! Did you eat your lunch? I did! (literally, I ate ) Cad atá tú ag caint faoi?
You know the way in most languages you change the end of words in certain situations? (car/cars, I eat / he eats, drapeau / drapeaux etc.)… And even the middle of the words in other ones (man/men, mouse/mice)? Well in Irish we very merrily change the beginning . This is something common in other Celtic languages and adds to a nice flow between words.
So, for those of you who don’t know, my name is actually Brendan (Benny is my nickname). In Irish this is originally written Breandán and when followed by verbs and such it stays the same. Tá Breandán ag ithe - Brendan is eating.
However, thanks to the magic of initial mutations we can change the start of words in many situations! So if you want to get my attention some day, don’t shout Breandán!! but A Bhreandán!! – which is actually pronounced ah Vrendawn since bh=v! This would be the vocative case for the linguists out there. Another example: Mo = my & madra = dog, but my dog is mo mhadra (“mo w adra”) since mh=w.
This strange use of spelling and the other examples mentioned above may seem offputting, but it’s actually quite helpful believe it or not! You see, we keep the letter of the original base word (e.g. crann for tree) in a modified version of the word (e.g. i gcrann for in a tree – the ‘c’ is silent, but essential for recognising the original word when the modified one is written). This is way better than if the language was perfectly phonetic; even if you knew the word crann, if you saw “grann” in a dictionary, text, or spelled out for you, it would be much more confusing. I’m told that Welsh (in the same language family)
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